Cardboard Prison: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Also known as [[Console RPG Cliches 49 to 72|Houdini's Postulate]].

 

 

See also [[Unsafe Haven]], where instead of a prison being laughably easy to break out, a sanctuary is laughably easy to break ''in.''

 

== Board Games ==

** Depending on personal degree of cynicism, the $50 is either paying the fine, or paying the bribe.

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** Lampshaded in the novel ''The Face of the Enemy''.

{{quote| '''The Master:''' Brigadier, if I wanted to break out, ''I wouldn't still be here.''}}

*** In Chapter 5, {{spoiler|the first time Guybrush repossesses his own corpse, he can say, "I surrender!" and get put in the Flotsam Island Jail. The first time, he is in the left cell, and he can wait until he gets dispossessed from his body. If he manages to get Bugeye in jail, and then say, "I surrender!" upon repossession of his own body, he gets put in a jail cell next to Bugeye's, but he can't escape from jail even through a hidden tunnel without getting dispossessed again. Only if he manages to get root beer and (in his bodily form) use it to create Spirit Gum and eat it up will he now be able to escape through a tunnel, which can later be a key to finding one of the ingredients for the Diet of the Senses spell.}}

** The keys to the Phatt City Jail in ''[[Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge (Video Game)|Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge]]'' are just outside the cell, being guarded by a dog. If I remember correctly, you distract the dog with a bone to get him to drop the keys.

** Or take away his items...

** This happens again in ''Windwaker''. The difference is that this Link only has a wooden shield on him at the time.

* Harry Houdini claimed (and was able to back up) the ability to escape from anywhere. He toured England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia. In each city, Houdini would challenge local police to restrain him with shackles and lock him in their jails. In many of these challenge escapes, Houdini would first be stripped nude and searched. A police officer is reported to have said he was ''very'' glad Houdini was not actually a criminal.

** Houdini once performed this trick in the Tower of London. No matter what he did, he could not unlock the door. Then, on a hunch, he tried the door handle and found the door opened. The jailer, in an attempt to fool the magician, had deliberately not locked the door.

** Once within a few hours, once within a week, and the last two times in under two months each. It's amazing London didn't stop letting prisoners have [[Bedsheet Ladder|bed sheets]] by the time he was done.

* Scott Adams, the creator of ''[[Dilbert (Comic Strip)|Dilbert]]'', wrote about such an occurrence in two of his blog posts (later published in book form). In the first he tells the then-current news story of a man who escaped prison by making a fake ID and a set of civilian clothes, and simply walked out. In the second post he reveals that the man had been caught outside a bar, intoxicated and making no attempt to hide his identity. Adams theorizes that the prisoner had simply forgotten something like a pack of cigarettes or a pair of sunglasses in his cell and got caught on purpose so he could retrieve them, certain that he could escape again. And that this time he wanted to try it ''drunk''.

[[Category:Prison]]

[[Category:Cardboard Prison]]